In 2006, when the Readington Board of Education initiated a search
for a new superintendent and eventually hired Jorden Schiff for the
position, they took pains to make the process open and transparent. Not
wanting to invite criticism from the public that the search and hiring
process was flawed or biased, the school board offered explanations of
their actions each step of the way and held open public meetings to
allow contact with the finalists for the position. Readington schools
had at this point been through a painful divorce from a former
superintendent and it was being run by an interim superintendent.
Finally, the school board recognized that candor and a collective
thought process accessible to the public is the best way to build
positive change.
What a terrible difference two years can make.
On November 25 the Readington school board intends to "renegotiate,
amend or otherwise alter" Jorden Schiff’s contract and to extend the
term of the contract from July 1, 2010 to the year 2013. [Editor's
update: see statement below] Despite direct
questioning about the matter during a public meeting, the school board
has refused to offer even a broad overview of its reasoning or for its
impetus for the extension. Already this year, only a month ago, the
school board altered the superintendent’s contract. Some of those
changes were made necessary by new state regulations that made
provisions of the original contract illegal. At the same time the school
board approved a 2008-2009 base salary for the superintendent of
$167,879. That is nearly a ten percent increase over his original
2006-2007 salary. So, what is behind the sudden push in November to
extend the term of the superintendent’s contract an additional three
years, even though we are only a little more than halfway through the
original four year term?
All we can do is speculate in the void left by the school board’s
absolute refusal to inform the public who elected them. One thing is for
certain: members of the electorate who have caught wind of this
radar-evading move by our school board are angry. Reaction shared with
readingtonparents.org ranges from utter disbelief to fuming cynicism.
Readers used adjectives like “outrageous,” “reckless,” “arrogant,”
“brainless,” and “disgusting.” Comments included wonderment that anyone
could get such a sweet deal in an economic climate like ours, questions
about personal alliances between some board members and the
superintendent who lives in town, arguments that the job performance of
our superintendent has not warranted a contract extension, debate about
what planet school board members come from, regrets that similar sweet
deals are not available in the particular reader's profession,
recognition that a contract extension now will remove all leverage for
the school district, numerous snarky comments about the “mutual
admiration society” comprised of the school board and the
administration, and words describing the lack of common sense among all
of the school leadership. In short, not a single reader was anything
close to supportive or even neutral on the idea, and there is universal
agreement that the school board is “up to something.” Several readers
noted that there has not been a single call for this contract extension
by any person outside of the school board.
If we hypothesize about the motives and the reasoning of our school
board for extending the superintendent’s contract—and that is all we can
do in the empty space left by the school board’s silence—then these
possibilities come up most frequently in the minds of the electorate:
The timing of the contract extension is odd and therefore
suspicious. Some wonder if this move is meant as a defensive posture
to protect against the potential for K-8 school district
consolidation, a prospect which has been raised at the state level.
The reasoning is that by extending the superintendent’s contract
Readington will either look less attractive as a consolidation
target by the County Superintendent’s office or that the
superintendent will be protected in the event a consolidation is
forced. However, the Executive County Superintendents have been
instructed to strike any contract language that would attempt to
implement a buyout of a district superintendent’s contract in the
event of a consolidation. Further, the first financial reports
detailing possible cost savings from consolidation aren’t even due
until 2010, with any real action beyond that. Presumably our school
board is aware of these factors and therefore would not attempt to
put Readington in an indefensible position or to protect against a
possibility which is far from certain.
Timing of the extension has also been raised as a possible
motive as related to test scores or to an upcoming budget vote next
year. Since the administration has made test scores the centerpiece
of its efforts, some wonder if our school leaders expect poor
showings in the next round of NJ ASK testing (on top of already
lackluster scores) and fear a backlash. Similarly, our
superintendent has been given credit by the school board and has
taken credit for passing the last school budget. Jorden Schiff, with
the support of board member David Livingston, has even given a
presentation to peers about his methods for being so successful at
passing a budget. (More about this below.) Is the timing of this
contract extension designed to avoid the potential problem of
defending poor test scores or a failed budget next year when the
school board is required to give the superintendent notice of a
non-renewal?
Our superintendent lives in town and moves in the same circles
as some board members. This was made obvious last year, before the
conflicts of interest between the school board and the Readington
Education Foundation were sorted out. Some speculate that this
contract extension is nothing more than an effort by some school
board members to reward their personal hero and to bypass potential
conflict over a contract renewal down the line. These board
members may be so enamored with Jorden Schiff’s performance in his
short tenure that they believe it is in the best interest of the
district to “lock him in” for an additional three years before
another district snaps him up. This is the “mutual admiration
society” argument made by some, where some school board members seem
almost to have
a crush on our superintendent. Some take this one more step and
theorize that our superintendent himself has made indications that
he is being headhunted by another district and needs more incentive
to stay put. Or, they say, in private negotiations with the
school board he has asked for a contract extension in return for
something the school board wants.
Whatever these and other possible motives may say about our school
board, the arguments against taking action on a contract extension only
a little more than two years into an original four year contract may say
even more about their true relationship to the Readington electorate.
Some of those voters make points like these:
Extending the superintendent’s contract now removes all leverage
for the district, even as we have yet to determine how good his
performance will be. He agreed to a four year contract, and we
should not arbitrarily extend it for any reason. Readington has
already had experience with severance pay both on an administrative
level and for a bad-apple nurse. Superintendent buyouts in New
Jersey have been rampant. There were 32 superintendent buyouts
between the years of 1985 and 1991, and more recent examples include
outrageous and expensive disasters in places like Keansburg,
Medford, Hoboken and other districts. Why would the Readington
school board arbitrarily extend our current unproven
superintendent’s contract now, only increasing the chances for
severance issues later? What compelling (and so far secret) reason
could there be to extend this contract right now?
If our superintendent has held up the threat of leaving for
another district—a move, incidentally, of which there is no public
evidence—then shouldn’t our school board let him go? As one reader
put it, “buy him some walking shoes” and let him leave. After all,
he promised to fulfill four years of promise. Still others wonder
why the superintendent hasn’t already spoken out against the
contract extension himself. Does he not recognize that the contract
extension idea is eating up his political capital? Does he not
realize that his silence makes him appear to be a co-conspirator, or
at least more concerned about his own career than the students and
parents he supposedly serves? Is he asking for a contract
extension as a tit-for-tat in order to comply with the demands or
wishes of a school board who should not be so easily blackmailed?
Our economy is collapsing all around us, with credible experts
raising the possibility of a “lost decade” similar to what the
Japanese have been through. We are only at the beginning of a
recession which will clearly have enormous repercussions on all
levels of government spending, as well as decimating the private
sector. At the exact instant this awful reality is hitting the
American economy; our school board determines that the time is
opportune to prematurely extend our superintendent’s contract by
three years? Some question both the sanity and the intelligence of
school board members who would choose this timing. Given that we
have no idea what kind of tax base will be left in two years, given
that we have no idea what kind of state or federal aid will be
available, and given that significant changes in the structure of
New Jersey schools and other government may become necessary anyway,
why would we choose this uncertain moment to lock-in the past
reality until 2013? Just as the rate of inflation is falling
and just as wage deflation may become an extended norm, why
should we volunteer to extend for another three years a rigid,
contractual increasing wage for the superintendent?
Aren’t these school board members simply mirroring the mistakes that
executives of Wall Street and Detroit already made years ago? Have
we learned nothing?
Our superintendent’s performance to date has been mixed, to put
it charitably. He has hung his hat on rising state test scores as
the measure of his success, yet student achievement by this
simplistic measure is not great on his watch. Even with
extraordinary expense and time spent on implementing NWEA testing to
predict state NJ ASK test scores, even with an unyielding focus by
administrators on test data, even with classroom and homework
test-prep programs like Study Island to practice test-taking, and
even with efforts to group students in order to target a rise in
their test scores, students have not scored well in areas like 7th
and 8th grade language arts, 5th and 7th grade math, and science in
general.
Other missteps have been obvious too. The media relations,
public relations, and internal management work by our superintendent
during the pennygate incident were amateurish and counterproductive,
only delaying the nationally broadcast pain of our district. The
credit given to him by some school board members for passing last
year’s school budget ignores the efforts of dozens of parent and HSA
volunteers and sidesteps the obvious truth that students were used
like tools to drag their parents to the polls during a mock
election. That little trick pre-loaded the total set of
participating voters with sympathetic parents over other sectors of
the electorate. It also turned the superintendent and members of his
administration into hypocrites when a similar mock-election program
was not implemented during the November 2008 presidential
election. Our superintendent’s initial push for a five year
strategic plan made great local headlines, but many participants in
those initial meetings later felt that their work had been unfairly
stretched to support his private agenda. In follow-up meetings of
the strategic planning committee, participation was well off the
original. Our superintendent has been seen as non-responsive to
parental accusations of excessive bullying and a negative culture in
the middle school and in Holland Brook School. Some parents have
been incensed by his lack of reaction to their concerns during both
public and private meetings. Our superintendent’s emphasis on
technology is seen by some as too expensive or not well-reasoned or
well-proportioned to other means of learning. Staff members, as well
as parents, have grown weary with endless and often repetitive
Powerpoint slide shows. The list goes on.
Our superintendent has added weight and expense to the
administrative structure of our district in the form of an assistant
superintendent, supervisors of particular subject matter, and
assistants and confidential secretaries for these or other
administrators. At the same time he has pushed "right-sizing"
for classrooms, the euphemism he uses to express the goal of
minimizing the number of teachers employed at any given time.
Some teaching positions (as opposed to teachers themselves)
are already gone and more are likely to disappear. What has
never been explained is how a steady or slightly declining number of
students in the Readington district, not to mention fewer teachers
to manage, translates to a need for more administrators than was
ever needed in prior years.
Given these and other criticisms, it seems far from assured that our
current superintendent will still be the best match for Readington come
the end of his original contract ending in 2010. The school board is not
required to notify the superintendent of a non-renewal (which could also
lead to a new or modified contract instead of a non-renewal) until the
middle of 2009. At the very least, argue many readingtonparents.org
readers, the school board should take every bit of time it is legally
allowed in order to evaluate our superintendent’s performance before
extending his contract at all. And, these same readers argue, if the
superintendent feels strongly that he must have an early extension in
order to be convinced to stay put—then let him go because then he is not
loyal and therefore the wrong person for the job. Some believe a
potential replacement for our current superintendent, if needed due to
his departure, could even be lurking among our current staff.
Whatever the rationale of stakeholders for or against the idea of
extending our current superintendent’s contract until 2013, their
opportunity to speak up to members of the school board will be at 7:30
on November 25, 2008 at Holland Brook School in the board meeting room.
[Editor's
note: several hours after the publication of this article, the
school board changed its mind about the meeting of the 25th and issued
this statement:
"The Readington
Township Board of Education has adjourned the public hearing,
previously scheduled for November 25, 2008, on the renegotiation and
extension of the Superintendent's existing employment contract to
provide the Board with additional time for review of the contract
and to obtain the review and approval by the Executive County
Superintendent to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and
regulations. Once this process is completed, the Board shall
re-advertise the public notice and public hearing required pursuant
to N.J.S.A. 18A:11-11."]
Whether the school board will continue to hide behind the straw man of
“personnel matters” and refuse to comment on the contract extension in
the face of more public questions remains to be seen. There is no legal
basis preventing the board from commenting in broad terms on their
reasoning for initiating a contract extension for a superintendent just
over halfway through his original contract. That detail only adds to the
suspiciousness of this initiative—an initiative that was kept under
wraps anyway, and which was only revealed in the minimum manner
prescribed by law. Actually, the lack of identifying specificity
in the descriptions of recent executive sessions by the school board on
this matter may not meet the minimum manner prescribed by law.
In any case, it is probably not an exaggeration to say that Readington
residents outside of the reach of this website or a small handful of
active citizens know nothing of this school board’s intentions in this
matter. We’ll see if time allows word to spread before the school board
takes action.
